


that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven

by celebros



Series: that which we are, we are [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Gen, M/M, Some hurt/comfort, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:41:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk's back in the world, but the aftermath is ongoing, and he's got some catching up to do. Crew-centric. Kirk and Spock POVs, friendship, some nightmares and h/c, Spock and Uhura bicker some more and pretend they're being logical about it. (But no Uhura hatin'.) Everyone's a little evasive, but they'll figure out how to work again soon enough. Spoilers for ST:ID.</p>
<p>Sequel to "though much is taken, much abides"; part two of four of "that which we are, we are". (In part three, we'll finally get around to the Pike situation and Spock will finally start to talk about the source of his angst.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one.

The first night, Jim wakes with a heart rate so high that the attending physician is at his side in less than a minute. He's gasping, arching, terrified. Boyce gives him lorazepam, speaking softly to explain what he's doing, and Jim _hears_ on the machines, rather than feels, his pulse slowing to normal.

"Nightmare?" Boyce asks gently.

"No," Jim says. "Reality."

Boyce leaves him. Jim sleeps unwillingly, his fingers cold. When he wakes, Bones is reclined in a chair beside him with a cloth over his face. He looks terrible. Jim says, " _I_ probably look better than you do."

"Yeah, well," Bones says, sitting up with a grunt, " _you've_ been sleeping." He hefts Jim's chart. "Though Phil says you were up in the night."

"Not for long."

"142 beats per minute."

"Not for long."

"You're supposed to be stable."

"Court-martial me. I don't think it's that easy, Bones."

Bones' face softens. "Sorry, Jim. I just... I need you to be more forthcoming than usual, if something's wrong."

"Yeah," Jim says quietly, "I guess I owe you that much."

"You let me know when you want visitors. I've got a call list. They'd be sleeping in the lobby if I let 'em, but I sent 'em off." He hesitated. "The 'Fleet's keepin' 'em busy, so don't feel a rush."

Jim nods. "How bad is it out there?" Spock had intimated, the day before, that there was damage. His hesitation had told Jim that it was bad enough that no one would tell him how bad, but it was worth trying.

"Bad," McCoy says, which, okay. "But it's pretty straightforward at this point. Just towing away wreckage. No one's talking about rebuilding yet." He snorts, then looks at Jim as if remembering who he's talking to. "Probably best you worry about your own rebuilding, for now."

"Yeah," Jim says. "About that. Do we have a timeline?"

"Medical brass says six weeks in the hospital, six months of PT. I think less hospital time, more PT, but I'm not even your attending, so what I think doesn't mean a peep til you're released. Don't look so grim. 's not like we've ever had a case of 'severe radiation poisoning and a dozen other goddamn things followed by death followed by injection of a three-hundred-year-old superhuman' before. You're our guinea pig for recovery time. Although no one else is gettin' that treatment again, for damn sure. Anyway. You're alive, which is completely stupid, all things considered."

Jim takes a breath that he hopes isn't shaky and looks away. Bones has been avoiding his gaze anyway, fiddling with the charts and looking out the window, but the minute Jim becomes evasive, the doctor's attention is sharply on his face.

"So who's first on your call list?" Jim asks, as cheerily as he can.

"Technically, Archer. But we're not letting you talk to him 'til we've had a senior-crew meeting, which will probably be tomorrow after hours. So don't throw any raucous parties before then. The admiralty would have my head on a plate if they knew I let you conspire before lettin' them in."

***

So Nyota comes first. "They didn't let me in for the first few days," she tells him once she's kissed his cheek and settled down at his side. "Too much risk of infection. Even Spock wasn't allowed."

"Bet he loved that."

"Don't joke, Jim. It's been hell."

He sobers. "I know. I mean - I wasn't here, so I don't know. But." He meets her eyes, and she shudders. "I'm sorry," he says sincerely. "Bones said you helped. Save me. So I guess I owe you my life."

"I just stopped Spock from killing Khan," she says. "Not that that was easy, but... it's what came after we docked that's been the hard part. Jim, no one's slept. We barely ate. No one wants you to know that, but I decided you're not such an idiot that you'll feel guilty. You understand what it means. Right?"

"Yeah," he says, his throat suddenly dry. "I guess I do."

When she leaves, Jim realizes he's exhausted. But Bones must have predicted that, because no one else comes.

***

Scotty's standing in the doorway when Jim wakes. The chronometer glows blue. It's barely past 0500.

"Cap'n," Scotty says when Jim lifts a hand to motion him in. "Ye sure? All right." He pulls up the chair. He makes a gesture like he's going to grab Jim's hand, but ends up just resting his own on the coverlet.

"Ye need anything'?"

"I'm fine, Mister Scott. Thanks." He closes his eyes to remember what he'd tried not to since he'd woken. He says, "You knew what to do. You called Spock."

"Instead o' the doctor, aye." He hesitates. "I knew, Jim. An' you know why?"

"Knew what? Why what?"

"That you couldn't make it. Because they taught us that. Because it's the engineer's job to fix the bloody core." He lets out a shaky breath. "I got scared. Since when've I listened to bloody protocols?"

Jim presses his lips together. "They only make command cadets face the _Kobayashi Maru_. Because when those decisions come, they're ours." Scotty's face is still in his hands. "I'd never have let you go in."

"I coulda tried. Coulda punched _you_."

Ha," Jim says bleakly, and then, "I'm sorry. If I'd been you... I'm sorry to have made you watch."

Scotty wipes his eyes. "An' I'm sorry for goin' on like this," he says. "Ye're tired. And we're neither of us drunk enough for this kinda talk. This's the last thing you need." He takes Jim's hand then, his grip not at all gentle. "Thank you for comin' back to us, Jim. Cap'n."

Jim tries to shift his free hand across his body, to set it atop Scott's, but his shoulders are too stiff. He huffs indignantly to cover the huff of exertion. The hand slips from his. His sheets are tucked gently against his chest. And he's gone again.

***

The next time he comes to, the room is empty. A vase of flowers is on the table inches from his head, but Jim isn't feeling the telltale itch of impending allergic doom.

"Don't worry," says Bones, entering the room with a grin. "Latest set of labs came back this morning. You're not allergic anymore."

"Hnnnn?"

"We just rebuild your immune system," Bones says. "Phil is theorizing you won't have any allergies anymore. I'm not promisin' that. You might just develop a whole new set." His smile fades slightly. "Or they could come back, too. We don't know. Like I said, you're our guinea pig, so..." He sees the alarm in Jim's face. "The allergies, kid. Just that. The radiation's done with. You think I'd rest if I wasn't sure?"

Jim lifts his head to sniff at the flowers to cover the panic that's already fading back into relief. "Senior crew meeting tonight?" he says.

"Yeah, but I'll brief you now. On official record, Jim, and this is very important - on official record, you didn't die."

Jim considers this. "Did the footage get -?"

"Irreparably damaged in the attacks. That's half true. Lots of the security systems were knocked out, and even once you got us back online, main power was rerouted to criticals only."

"Did they confiscate your tribble?"

"No. Carol has it. Doctor Marcus."

"She heal okay?"

"Her kneecap was pretty much powder, but we had her healed up by the time you... when they brought you in. She'll have some PT. And a lifetime of psychotherapy. Speaking of which... if you need to talk to someone about the whole shitshow, I can find someone discreet. But Starfleet can't know. We can't risk someone deciding that they need... Harrison."

Jim closes his eyes and suppresses the bile that rises instantly in his throat. "Okay. I'll let you know." He can tell from the poorly disguised surprise on Bones's face that he'd expected Jim to refuse outright.

"And everyone else on senior crew is okay," Jim says. "You, Sulu, Chekov?" He pauses. "Spock?"

"Give or take some sleepless nights."

"Right," Jim says. "So then, as for everyone not on senior crew."

"We'll go over numbers when we meet tonight. They ain't pretty."

Then it'll be my turn for a sleepless night, Jim thinks.

***

Bones sedates him after lunch so he can save his energy, and Jim wakes up to a familiar voice rising to say, "Nothing I have to report is more important than the Captain's health."

"Jim," Bones says, sounding relieved.

"My apologies, Captain." Spock's eyebrows are both raised. "It was my understanding that our conference tonight was contingent upon your health, a fact I did not anticipate the doctor would need to be reminded of." Jim would laugh if they didn't both look so serious.

"Dammit, man, I told you it's _fine_. He slept nineteen of the last twenty-four hours, it's goddamn healthy to wake him up. I'm his doctor, dammit!"

"You are his Chief Medical Officer. Doctor Philip Boyce is his physician."

"And you're a damn green-blooded alien without a medical degree! Which qualifies you to question my medical advice how, exactly?"

"Jim," Spock says, clearly deciding that circumventing the doctor was wisest, "there is no urgent news. We can conduct our business when you feel able; it need not be tonight."

"Mister Spock, I don't believe anyone has ever told me that I look like shit quite so kindly before."

"I made no reference to your physical app-"

"Where are the others?"

Spock lifts just one eyebrow.

"In the waiting room," Bones says. "Spock ordered them out." 

"Order them back in, if you please, Commander." When he'd left, "Bones, what the hell?"

"I gave you a couple hypos to bring you out and you didn't wake up, Jim. Spock flipped his shit."

Nyota files in, rolling her eyes, followed by Chekov - who lifts his hand to Jim in a nervous wave - Sulu, who gives Jim a faint nod, Scotty, who meets his eyes this time, and Carol who... is not a member of senior crew. She smiles at him before looking away. Spock is last.

"Did we get a new Chief of Security?" Jim asks, acknowledging Acting Chief Hendorff's absence before it can gape.

"Negative, Captain. All such matters have been left to your prerogative."

"I'd like to have a full docket as soon as possible. Get me a PADD of candidate profiles by tomorrow at 1700 hours, Mister Spock. Scotty. Status of the _Enterprise_."

"They've landed 'er in Riverside, Cap'n. Likely to be there for the better part of a year, but she'll be reoutfitted, not decommissioned. I'll be out to oversee repairs as soon as they've done a full inventory and completed their investigations and scrapped what can't be saved."

"Excellent. Doctor Marcus, welcome, by the way."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Doctor Marcus was privy to several events the rest of us were not. I deemed it appropriate to invite her to join any mission-related crew briefings we call."

"Well and good, Mister Spock. Now. Human casualties. How many from the crew?"

"107," Nyota says.

"Eight," Bones corrects. "Ensign Greeley died in surgery day before yesterday."

"He's not on my register," Nyota says. "Can we confer after this, Doctor?"

Jim is still reeling. He sucks in a breath. "How many do we have bodies for?"

"Seventy-three," Bones says grimly. "Marc- The attack in the warp tunnel -"

"Have services been arranged? Families all notified?"

"Most of the services have already happened," Sulu says quietly from Jim's left shoulder, looking uncomfortable.

"Status of Starfleet."

"The position of Fleet Admiral has been conferred upon Jonathan Archer," Spock says.

"Huh. That's excellent. I would have guessed Nogura, but -"

"He's under investigation," Sulu put in.

"That accusation is founded in speculation and rumor," Spock rumbles, raising his voice, "neither of which are appropriate in the context of a senior officer briefing." Everyone's eyes are on him, and he straightens his tunic and retains his facade of disapproval.

"I think that's the closest we've gotten to anyone confirming the rumor," Scotty murmurs, and laughs. Nyota joins him, and Chekov and Sulu dissolve in chuckles, but Carol's expression is strained, and Spock's face has darkened, and Jim doesn't have the energy to be amused.

They break apart a few minutes later. Spock rests a hand briefly on the cloth of Jim's sleeve before he turns to go, and Nyota drops to peck his forehead again - he smiles at her, unable to help it, so glad of the affection and the touch. "I'll be in tomorrow, cap'n," Scotty puts in anxiously, "if tha's all right." He's looking wide-eyed at McCoy, who rolls his eyes and nods, muttering under his breath as he sets up Jim's charts for the night. Sulu and Chekov wave as they walk out together, and when Bones finally shuffles out with a promise to be in first thing in the morning, it's just Jim and Carol.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Hey," she answers. "Is it all right? That I'm here?"

"Of course. Actually, Spock's posturing aside, we could probably use another science officer. When I'm up, I can get the paperwork going to make it official." That's done, then. "Has the 'Fleet been treating you all right? While I was out?"

She's looking down. He frowns. "Carol?"

"I meant if it's all right that I'm here right now," she says. "With you. In this room. If you... I can go if you want."

"No," he says, and then clarifies quickly, "no, it's fine. It's... good to see you. Bones says they patched you up pretty quick."

"Yes," she says. "I..." She's almost in tears, and Jim can't get out of the damn bed to do anything, so he flaps his closest hand at her helplessly.

"Hey," he says. "Hey." She looks up and accepts what's offered, takes his hand in her own, holding it very gently. "Carol," he whispers. "It's all right. We'll take care of you."

"Why?" she says, her shoulders shuddering with the force of containing her emotions. "I snuck onto your ship. I almost got your best friend blown up. Then my father killed a quarter of your crew and I couldn't even -" Her voice ends in a soft sob, almost a hiccup.

"Because you're my crew," he says softly. "I accepted your papers -"

"I _forged_ my papers!"

"Doesn't matter. Whether you were assigned to me or not, I accepted you, and I - I mean it. We'll take care of you."

"No one can look me in the face," she says, stilling. " _No one_. Not the medics, not the admirals who I've known since I was a _child_ , not the reporters, not even the counselor the 'Fleet assigned me after they decided I wasn't guilty of conspiracy." She looks up at him. "But you can. My father looked you in the eyes and decided to kill you. And you're the one who doesn't turn away."

He can see bits of Alexander Marcus in her, if he tries. The cheekbones, high and pronounced. Something in the shape of her nose. One of her eyes is the same mottled blue as her father's, and the other is green. He'd never noticed.

In another life, Jim thinks, nothing could have stopped him from inviting her to curl up next to him. And in another life, Jim thinks she might have done it. They could have comforted each other now. Joined their two cold selves into something warm.

"I can give you that," he says. "I promise I'll always look you in the face." He pauses. "And Bones will get you a new counselor. He knows some good ones. He's told me so."

"Thank you," she says, and stands. She wipes the back of her wrist across her face. She looks suddenly exhausted, but she smiles at him.

"You can come tomorrow," he says. "You can talk to me. Anytime you want. And you don't have to call me Captain til we're back on the bridge. And we will be."

"Thank you," she says again.

"And if you do come tomorrow," he says, "try to sneak me an apple. They haven't let me eat anything more than pudding yet. My kingdom for something crunchy."

"There's a poem about apples," she says, looking wistful. "I don't remember it offhand. Do you like poetry?"

"Never had a chance to learn much," he answers. "My dad loved poetry, but Mom locked all his stuff away when I was little."

"Apples," she says firmly, "and I'll find that poem to read to you. And maybe we can get you on your feet, with Leonard and Phil's permission." She adjusts the flowers at his bedside absently. "I hope it's okay," she adds, gesturing to them. "Leonard said you weren't allergic anymore, and he seemed very excited about it, so I got some at the gift shop."

"I didn't realize they were from you," Jim says, and reaches up to touch her hand, stopping her fiddling. "They're beautiful, thank you."

"Goodnight," she says, and turns the lamp off on her way out.


	2. two.

Jim faces the next barrage of challenges with completely unsurprising aplomb.

When the admiralty finally comes, it is in the form of a much-bedraggled Admiral Archer. Jim is relieved—he doesn’t know if he could have maintained his composure in the face of their condescension. Also, Jim’s known Archer since his first week at the Academy. Their acquaintance had been made by virtue of Jim’s sheer cheek and adamant refusal to change his tone when he realized to whom he was speaking. Archer had been in his late 130s at the time, well-aged even by human standards, but his heart had stayed strong, both the literal muscle and the emotional drive. He strolls into Jim’s hospital room and plunks himself in what Jim’s accidentally started to think of as _Spock’s chair_. He looks around, a little ruefully, and when a nurse comes by, gestures for her to shut the door.

“I know you met with your crew last night,” he says without preamble. “I expect they told you the things I’m supposed to open with. 107 of your crew died. The ship’s in Riverside. Nogura’s under questioning. They’re telling me you’ve got six weeks of in-hospital recovery, but your man seems to think it’ll be less.”

“108 died,” Jim says. “Lieutenant Uhura, I believe, is looking into making sure those logs are complete. And we hadn’t officially confirmed Nogura’s status, but the word I got was that it has been widely rumored.”

“Right, because why else would they put an old man like me at the top?” Kirk tries to shake his head, but Archer cuts him off. “They believe Jim and I—Admiral Komack, sorry—that we didn’t know what Marcus was up to, besides knowing that he had his fingers in some Section 31 plots. I don’t know what they’re going to do if they decide Nogura didn’t know, either; I can’t imagine they’ll keep me up here long.” He waves a hand at Jim. “I wouldn’t want them to.”

“Understood, sir,” Jim says, still determined to be as stiffly at attention as he can be in a hospital bed.

“Well,” Archer says, and they talk for an hour and a half, mostly confirming the crew’s version of events. Jim takes responsibility for the incursion onto Qo’noS, because, well, it was his responsibility. Archer is clearly tired, and Jim speaks in a voice low enough to be unstressful but loud enough that the admiral doesn’t have to strain to hear it.

Finally, the question Jim has expected but dreaded. It’s in the logs. There’s no way around that. But he’d thought maybe they’d just talk to Bones directly. Confirming his story, Jim supposes. Just like he’s doing for them.

“You have a log stating that you requested Doctor McCoy test Khan’s blood to see if you could determine the source of his rather unnatural abilities,” Archer says. “Are you aware of what the doctor found?”

Jim is able to frown without an overabundance of acting. “I haven’t received a full report on it, but he did say that the cells seemed to regenerate at an unusual rate.” He looks away for a second, because it’s hard to lie to Archer, and then says, “I don’t understand how that’s possible, but at this point, sir, I don’t particularly care.”

Archer makes a noise between a hum and a grunt, his lips twisting with what seems like discomfort. “That should be it for now,” he says, and thumbs off the recording. He sighs deeply, audibly. “I’m glad as hell you made it, Kirk. I know a frantic CMO when I see one, so I know you were in worse shape than the logs imply.”

“I must have slept through that part,” Jim cracks, but Archer, usually easy to amuse, doesn’t smile.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead. “I’ll make sure the board knows that my opinion is that your choices were sound, considering the conditions.”

“Admiral,” Jim says, and his voice wavers. Frustrated, he swallows hard. “Has there been any decision as to whether my reinstatement as Captain of the Enterprise will be honored going forward?”

Archer’s eyes soften in the long crinkle of his face. “They might rule that Marcus was operating illegally, and therefore his orders could be rescinded,” he says. “But now I’m Fleet Admiral, and I say that even if they say his advancement of you was part of that, _I_ name you a captain, effective immediately.”

There’s something gruff in his eyes, not the open fondness Kirk’s grown used to. “Chris wanted you to be his first officer,” he says. “And I like you, Kirk, but I can’t say I didn’t have my doubts. I thought, if any man could help you be fit for command, it was him, though.”

“Yeah,” Jim whispers.

“No,” Archer says. “I was wrong. You did it without his help.”

“But I didn’t do it without help,” Jim protests, his throat dry. “Just without him.”

The smile comes then. “And that’s why you’ll be a good captain, Jim. You know that you can’t do it alone.”

***

Next, and with no reprieve, comes physical therapy. They assign Jim a pleasant young PT for his rehabilitation. Jim begs to have Bones instead.

“You haven’t driven me crazy enough already?” Bones sighs, and then when he sees Jim’s quiet desperation, “I’m a doctor, man, not a crutch.”

That hits pretty close to home. Jim takes the PT.

His name is Evans. He’s Jim’s age, but bounces in so effusively that for a split second Jim thinks it’s Pavel. He’s new—joined up after the Battle of Vulcan. He says he’s excited to meet the man himself.

“The man’s not quite as fabulous as the legend,” Jim warns him, and it occurs to him with a soft punch-to-the-gut nausea that he would never have said that three weeks ago.

“I’ve treated a number of your crew,” Evans says unconcernedly, shrugging as he unwinds a reel of wires and tiny gray electrodes. “That’s not legend, Captain. Just journalism.”

“That’s a dirty word here, you know.”

Evans laughs. He’s so young, impossibly young. “Yeah, I gotcha. Press has never been the Kirk family’s best friend, has it?”

Jim doesn’t answer. The young man attaches the electrodes to his calves with gentle precision.

“So how is my crew, then?” he asks after a minute.

“Eighty-five percent of the patients I took on are fit for duty, so they’re going to be chomping at the bit by the time the reoutfit is done, from what I’m hearing,” Evans says, and there’s something sobered in his face. Jim almost wishes he hadn’t asked, because now in his mind he’s right back inside the ship as she takes hit after hit after hit. “You’ve got some fighters. And that McCoy, he’s a firecracker, but he knows his stuff. I know you guys are close, but from a professional standpoint, you couldn’t have a better man at your bedside. He and the nurses did some wonder on Ms. Marcus’s knee.”

“Lieutenant Marcus,” Jim says sharply.

“Right,” Evans says quietly. “Of course. Are you ready to try to stand?”

Bones had warned him, but Jim is totally unprepared for the sheer quantity of pain that rockets up his body when he puts his weight back on his feet for the first time.

He had thought, after what had happened, that lesser pain might be diminished. It isn’t. But he doesn’t let himself show it. He doesn’t even pause to catch his breath. He powers through the exercises so quickly that Evans exclaims cheerfully, as he leaves, that maybe they’ll need fewer sessions than Boyce has anticipated. After he’s gone, Jim collapses, exhausted, into Spock’s chair, sitting empty at his bedside.

A hand on his shoulder wakes him. It’s Bones, half-leaning on Jim as he examines the charts with a critical eye, as if the numbers there are the shoddy work of a university mathematics student who should know better.

“Notes from the physical therapist are promising,” he says without looking around at Jim. “Your muscles are bouncing back. It’s weird, almost like… well, I guess it makes sense. You know you actually gained muscle while you were out? Don’t let that get to your head.”

“Good morning to you too,” Jim says, though it’s almost dinnertime.

Bones turns and looks back at him, then sighs, rocking back onto his heels and taking the two long strides to the bed, leaning against its edge with his hands on the mattress behind him. “You still feelin’ all right?”

“I might feel better if I felt worse, honestly,” he says.

“Don’t complain,” Bones says. “That’s my handiwork. I can take you off some of those pretty little pills and drips you’re takin’, if you really want to feel worse.”

Jim wants to say, _I died, Bones,_ , as if he doesn’t know. Instead he asks Bones to put in an order of grilled chicken breast and mashed potatoes from the replicators outside the door.

After the food has disappeared in silence, Jim says, “Or maybe you could wheel me up to the roof so I can take a look at the city. Still haven’t seen what I missed when I was out.”

“That’s a sure recipe for makin’ you feel worse.”

“That’s what I meant.”

Bones studies him a long moment, and then says, “No,” but his voice is strange. “I want Spock to be the one who takes you out,” he says after a moment.

“Bones,” Jim starts, but Bones has already raised a hand, his eyes closed, his head shaking.

“No, Jim. I’m not going to take you up. I’ll comm Spock to come over right now, if you want, but then I’ll see to my other patients while you…” He sighs. He looks exhausted. Jim presses his lips together and nods.

“I can comm him,” he says, and stands. He can feel, now, why he needs the PT. He can walk without the electrodes, but the muscles are weak, shaky. His body doesn’t quite obey his commands. One of his knees gives halfway across the room, and he catches himself, hoping that Bones isn’t paying attention. No such luck. But he doesn’t say anything.

He grabs his communicator off the side table and collapses back onto his bed. He’s asleep before he enters Spock’s number, and when he wakes again, the room is dark and empty and the door is shut.


	3. three.

Jim dreams that they crash. There’s a black hole in his belly and the core doesn’t move and everything screams.

_“Captain,” a voice whispers._

_Jim’s on the ship, but it’s empty. Everything sort of swims. They are falling again, but smooth and slow. The voice must have been on his comm. He taps his badge and says, “What is it, Lieutenant?” but no one answers and the hallway swallows the words like underwater. And he isn’t_ wearing _a comm badge. He’s all in black and gray. Away-mission incognito, one of dozens. This one is his favorite for danger. Least favorite for meeting pretty natives._

_He’s probably on his way to the transporter room, then._

_In the turbolift, someone says, “Captain,” again and it’s all Jim can do to keep breathing, there’s something in his chest taking up all the room he’s got for air. The lift console is gone so no comms there either. “Shit,” Jim breathes._

_“Please specify,” the computer says. Jim knows it’s the computer, even though it comes in the same voice that’s been calling him, and he can’t quite put a finger on who it might…_

_“Deck five,” he says, because he always stops at Sickbay before an away mission and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t been yet today._

_The lift doesn’t move, but the door opens straight into Bones’s office, which is just as well. The desk is empty. Beyond, the beds are covered in long shapes draped with blankets. Someone should take care of this, Jim thinks. Some of the bodies are small. Jim has never not looked, but he doesn’t this time, somehow._

_The ship is swimming. He’s needed somewhere. Outside, Jim’s pretty sure it’s dark. No stars._

_He tells the turbolift to take him to the transporter room, but it opens into Engineering._

_And it comes back to him. Something does. Something he forgot. There’s blue light and dim shapes and fear. Like not being able to breathe. Like a black hole in his belly and his lungs filling with fluid. Or vacuum. This is where he’s needed. This is why the ship swims in blackness._

_“Captain,” he says to himself, softly, and he_ wanted _that, a day ago, wanted it more than anything. He isn’t sure if the voice that comes back to him is an echo or not._

_The core is waiting._

_When he gets there, the access door is open. Someone should be here. He’s glad no one is._

_The climb is long and hot and everything is buzzing. Jim wonders if they’ll be there at the end. Bones and Spock and Gary and Sam. He climbs harder and there it is, this dead yawning aching core that’s supposed to be the life-force of his lady._

_He’s determined to die with the living pulse of_ Enterprise _under his body, to fall apart instead of letting her fall, as the buzzing takes over, to pretend that that buzzing is just the ship’s hollow gentle hum-lullaby. But although he knows it should (why?) (but it should)—_

_—the core doesn’t move._

_They fall._

Light spikes Jim’s vision, and it takes him a moment to know anything. The hospital charts and the white sheets he’s fisting both hands in and the sweat and the soreness of his throat and finally the blot in the light become cohesive.

“Mister Scott,” he says, and even _he_ can tell that he sounds like shit.

Scotty leans against the doorframe. His face is pinched, his head down, hands behind his back.

“Captain,” he says quietly after a moment, his voice measured, brogue gentled without his usual energy. “All right?”

“What was I shouting?”

“Just ‘no,’” Scotty says.

“You seem to have made a habit of visiting in the wee hours.”

“Aye aye.”

“Everything okay?”

Scotty chokes on a laugh. “You’re not s’posed to ask me that. Look at yourself.”

“Ah,” Jim says. “You’re on babysitting duty.”

Scotty looks pained. “No’ exactly,” he answers. “Do ye no’ remember?”

“What don’t I remember?” He’s cold, suddenly, and checks the chrono again. No. He hasn’t lost any more days.

“You’ve been havin’ nightmares, Jim. I mean, which of us hasn’t, but all they can do is when they see a spike, give you a smoother, an’ it hasnae been working for ye. So we’ve been takin’ watch. Alpha crew. Whoever isnae working the next day.” He doesn’t remember. He tries to tamp the panic.

“I’ve been awake for this? When you’ve—you guys have been here?”

“Aye, Cap’n, but no’ exactly yourself. Sort o’ half awake, if I’d to guess, and half still dreaming, which isnae exactly a recipe for calm, but… it seemed to help. Havin’ us here.”

Jim takes another breath. “Starfleet giving you a lot of days off, Scotty?”

Scotty flushes and finally steps over the threshold, dropping into a seat at Jim’s side. “Maybe I’ve volunteered a shift or two more’n I ought to, but I do nae see much o’ ye during the day.”

Jim sighs and gently opens the door he’d closed in his mind. “Why don’t I remember waking up at night?”

“Well, the good doctor got called in and sedated ye the first time. You were lucky no’ to remember that, from what he said. Second time, McCoy slept in the next room over, but Nyota deactivated the alarms he’d set up and stayed wi’ ye. She didna say much but that ye woke up not yourself. Last night, ye didn’t wake with Sulu, but ye did with me. No’ like this, though. I woke you when ye shouted, last night. And you were no’ well. The nurses tried to give ye the smoother again, but I didna let them. Tonight Chekov said you slept uneasily, first half o’ the night, spoke but didna wake. An’ this is the first you’ve been lucid. Maybe because you woke yourself, since I didn’t try to wake ye this time.” He rubs his hands through his hair. In the light still spilling in from the door, he looks wild. “Don’ look at me like that, Jim. Och. Let us take care o’ ye, for godssake.”

“What if I don’t remember this in the morning?”

“I’ll remind ye, I suppose.”

Scotty looks up at him after a moment and must see something stricken in Jim’s face, because he says, “Well, it’s no’ magic, Jim,” with some reproach. “We’re no’ miracle workers, no matter how highly ye think of us.” He sighs. “Back to sleep, then. The doc’ll have me court-martialed if I keep ye up with my talk.”

“Well,” Jim says, “thanks.” But it’s a long time before he can get the rush and frustration from his blood, and by then, Scotty’s figure has settled back in the doorway, no light behind him, his head down and his hands tucked behind him.

***

Jim’s familiar with patient meetings, but he hasn’t had one since he left Iowa.

It’s expected that the patient will have one or two family representatives, and in a case like Jim’s, where the patient is still on stronger drugs, they insist upon it. Jim awkwardly asks Spock to join him. Who better to help them discuss treatment plans, to let Jim know if his health is affecting his decision making.

Spock appears slightly late and with his jaw visibly clenched. Bones stands so fast his chair almost falls over, alarm on his face, but Spock makes a tired gesture for him to sit again.

“The press took an interest in my arrival,” he says. “It appears a member of hospital staff informed several networks of the Captain’s patient meeting today. I found their questions entirely inappropriate.”

“Celebrity journalism is at its worst when health and family are concerned,” Doctor Boyce remarks with a grimace. “I can’t be surprised at the indiscretion of the report. Such things happen frequently, and there’s no knowing the source. It could be any of two hundred nurses or dozens of therapists or one of the doctors or administrators… It does always baffle me that they take such an interest in _us_ , though. With so many injured, what can they possibly have to say?”

“They’ll make some piece speculating on my estrangement from my mother and interview an anonymous source saying my psychiatric health is in question and the Admiralty is considering revoking my hasty appointment to command. Then another journal will decry the rumors and say you’re behind it in a desperate, jealous bid to get my ship.” Jim smirks at Spock.

“That is uncanny,” Boyce offers after a pregnant pause.

“Years of practice,” Jim shoots back, then to Spock, “You all right?”

“I am adequate.”

Boyce launches into a recounting of events to date. Jim stays as stoic as he can, but he’s sure Spock has captured and catalogued every flicker of his gaze and clench of his jaw. The rundown he can get if he asks will be worth weeks of psychotherapy. He’s not sure if he’ll ask.

Spock steeples his fingers as Boyce discusses the hours during which McCoy had administered the serum. Jim knows Boyce must suspect the miracle McCoy denies, but he also understands the necessity of its denial. They’ve fuzzed the details to make death anything but inevitable, fabricating a contamination suit, but there’s been no explanation for the solitary hours that Bones had spent at Jim’s bedside before the first injection. Rigging and reprogramming the life-support systems that had had nothing to sustain.

Boyce does know that the serum was synthesized from blood. He knows it resembles human blood. Bones says he’s muttered about a connection to the Nero incident. He doesn’t suspect the worst. They’re safe. But Jim can’t ask questions about Augments or psychological impact. He’s resolved to speak to Old Spock about it, but he hasn’t been given access to vid comms yet.

Boyce is looking at Jim. McCoy grunts.

“Sorry,” Jim says, “I zoned out.”

“Side effect?” Boyce asks.

“Personality trait,” McCoy answers, his voice a little short. “Where’d we lose you.”

“Waking up,” Jim says. “I know everything after that.”

“An unwise assumption,” Spock says immediately.

“Thanks.”

“Captain, your health—”

“Is of paramount importance at this critical and delicate juncture, yeah, yeah.”

“Is the subject of this meeting, and so as you are the expert on the topic we require your attention and input to confirm our information is accurate and complete.”

Jim twists his mouth. “Touche. Sorry.” He makes eye contact with each of them. “I think everything else I’m experiencing is just a side effect of the drugs.”

They look expectant.

“I’m tired a lot,” Jim says wearily. He’d hoped not to need to repeat this litany in front of Spock, but he should have known better. “I hurt. I feel heavy. I know I have nightmares.” He tries not to look accusing. “I only remember the one, but they said there’ve been more.”

“They,” Boyce says measuredly, not quite a question.

“Every night,” Bones says softly, crouched with his elbows on his knees.

“I can walk pretty much unassisted. I, uh. It’s true I phase out normally, but it’s been harder than usual to focus.”

“Tell me about feeling heavy,” Boyce says.

“Just like high-grav training, I guess,” he shrugs. “I just feel a little heavier all over.”

“Fair,” the doctor answers, typing on his PADD. Spock is watching him, brows furrowed. “How’s your pain?”

“That’s measurable, isn’t it?”

“Certainly, but we like to corroborate. Your sense of it is important.”

“Moderate. Nothing unbearable. I feel best in the morning.”

“Any stiffness?”

“Only before my PT.”

“Okay,” says Boyce, and then he looks at Bones.

“We’re keeping you for observation and medication management for another nine days. During that time your PT will intensify until we’ve got you off the painkillers. We’re also going to do daily monitoring of your autoimmune responses and some immersion treatments to gauge your susceptibility, and a full allergy panel. We’d like to see your sleep disruptions stop, so we’ll fiddle with some ideas there.”

“I don’t want you messing with my brain,” Jim says sharply. “No SSRIs, no DRIs. There’s nothing you can give me for sleep that won’t affect my daytime psyche.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“I’m serious, Bones. Don’t dope me up.”

“Understood.” Jim had expected a fight, but with Boyce here, Bones is closer to acting by the book. Bones looks to his superior for a moment, brows furrowed. “We’re moving you to a rehab wing tonight. That means a larger room, but less monitoring. Do you want your wake-up angels to keep it up?” Jim feels his face go blank and schools it to look natural. He's promised Bones complete transparency.

"I don't know," he answers after a minute. "I mean, I assume that you think having the familiar faces nearby is helping, or one of you'd have put a stop to it already, or asked one if the night nurses to stand guard. But I don't remember what happens when I get woken up, and I'd be lying if I said I was comfortable with them all seeing me... like that."

"It really comes down to whether you'd rather wake like that alone," Bones says, quiet.

"We could try it," Jim offers, and then before anyone can grimace, more decisively, "I'll try tonight alone. Throw on a vid feed so that if I don't remember, I can watch it."

He doesn't want to look at Spock then, but he does. He's got to be sure this decision isn't too prideful; that he's not being an idiot.

Spock's expression is schooled blank, but Jim catches a downward twitch of his brows. It feels like worry, but gentler, softer than he's used to. He soaks it in, lets it stay, accepts it as a gift.


	4. four.

At the end of the patient meeting there is a long quiet as each of them takes a turn to read the PADD of carefully written notes and sign at the bottom. Jim is last. He worked on his signature once he started getting serious about command track—one of several small vanities. It’s a large swooping JTK, with smooth but incoherent squiggles for the rest of the letters, dashed-off dots for the _i_ s, a flourish at the end. He looks at the other three signatures before he adds his own—Bones with a lot of vertical mess, Boyce cramped and old-fashioned and with no dots on his _i_ s. Spock’s full name is written so neatly it looks almost pronounceable. He’s always signed his direct reports to Jim without the lineal name, so Jim has seen it only rarely. It occurs to him that Spock only offers his full name for critical and ceremonial occasions. He wonders which this qualifies as.

When they’re done, Bones claps a hand on Jim’s shoulder and grabs the wheelchair, pushing him out of the little conference room and into the sunlit hallway. “I’ll be by tonight right before I leave, somewhere around 1900 hours. They’ll have moved you already. Throw a note on your chart if you need anything.” Jim nods a mute thanks, and Bones shoots a meaningful look at Spock and then takes off.

Spock inclines his head toward the lift, and Jim nods. They’re going to the roof. Jim’s seen bits of the city through the windows, but from the roof they’ll have the full and horrifying panorama. They leave the wheelchair in the foyer next to the lift. Almost as soon as he’s out of the chair, Jim rocks forward, and Spock grips his arm at the elbow. Everything else is still.

“You indicated that you suspect your symptoms are side effects of your pharmaceutical regime,” Spock says quietly as the lift hums upward. “You should be aware that some of the symptoms you mentioned are not indicated for any of your medications.”

Jim doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he’s glad when the lift hits top and opens onto a sunny rooftop terrace. Bones has assured him that this area of the hospital is not under surveillance, even now. He takes a deep breath of the fresh air and pretends that Spock’s fingers under his elbow aren’t half of what’s keeping him upright.

“I kinda figured,” he says finally. “I mean, I don’t expect to be back to normal too fast. This close to normal is better than I could have hoped for, so if the trade-off is attention difficulty and nightmares… well. It’s not going to interfere with my command, and that’s what matters to me.”

Neither of them seems to be steering the other, but they’re walking inexorably toward the edge of the terrace, to the place where the city below is most visible. Jim knows that Spock can feel his heart rate increasing.

“Do you know why Bones wouldn’t take me up here himself?” Jim asks when Spock doesn’t object to Jim waving off his symptoms.

“Doctor McCoy is undoubtedly aware that my knowledge of the city’s situation is more precise. I have been thoroughly briefed and questioned by Starfleet while you recover. The doctor, on the other hand, has barely ventured beyond the hospital. By the time he was willing to leave your side, the recovery crews had found the last living victim, so there has been little need for him elsewhere.”

“Okay, well,” Jim says, and takes a deep breath, “can you give me the rundown?” They’re at the edge now. He’s looking at Spock for a moment first, gathering courage to see what had come of his choice to bring a homicidal madman aboard a warship.

“Seventy-three percent of commercial and public structures within the city limits sustained damage. It is believed that sixty-point-eight percent of those damages were caused by the shock waves. An estimated sixteen-point-two percent of those buildings had fire and smoke damage but were not structurally compromised. However, of the buildings that did sustain structural damage, most suffered complete loss. Ten percent of the residential units in the city were completely destroyed. Ninety-two percent of Starfleet Command was destroyed. Fifty-one-point-nine percent of Starfleet Academy was destroyed.” Spock stops his litany to inhale deeply. Jim looks at him and catches, for an instant, a glimpse of his pain.

“The dead?” It’s his duty to ask this.

“Uncounted,” Spock says. “I’m sure it is evident to you that the estimate is upwards of ten thousand.”

Jim lets himself look out again. The city seems… hollow. Beyond the concavity where the wreckage has been lifted away, the skies are empty. A low _whup-whup-whup_ of machinery beats an echo against the city.

“Seventy percent of the city’s population has been evacuated,” Spock says, and Jim is torn between telling him to shut up and let this sink in and begging him to throw more and more on top of this story so that they can drown in numbers and keep the reality obscured. “The supply chains are nonfunctional. The water mains have broken down. The hospitals are using up most of the energy that remains for the city; most of what this hospital has is energy rerouted from undamaged residential areas whose citizens voluntarily left. Other regions were subject to mandatory evacuations while radiation cleanup is underway.”

Jim almost asks whether they’re in danger from the ambient radiation, then stops, closes his eyes, and lets out a hollow laugh. When he looks out again he can see Spock’s dark eyes heavy on him, disapproving, it seems, but he doesn’t care if Spock can’t understand what it’s like to be unwittingly immortal.

Spock puts his hands behind his back. “I wish to speak more of your health, Captain,” he says.

“Only if you’re speaking to me as my friend and not as my first officer,” Jim says, a little sharply. Spock straightens his shoulders and lifts an eyebrow. When it’s clear he’s waiting for a go-ahead, Jim sighs and gives him the nod to continue.

There are a few questions Jim’s come to expect, the thorough gauging of accuracies that borders on inappropriately private— _How well are you walking unassisted? Have your physical therapy sessions been progressing at an acceptable rate? For which self-care tasks do you still require assistance?_ But then they get to, _Do you believe that your emotional reactions are falling within healthy parameters?_ and Jim chokes another syllable of laughter.

“That’s a hell of a question,” he says. “No. Maybe fifty percent of the time. You?” It’s intended to be a little vicious, and Spock undoubtedly senses that. The quiet that follows is drawn out, but Jim’s determined not to let Spock get away with asking a question like that without some acknowledgement that it’s a little too personal.

“No,” Spock says finally. “I am profoundly disturbed by the events that led to this.” He inhales through his nose and both of his eyebrows quirk. “When the time is right, I believe we could speak at length on this, if you so desire. As friends. As you say.”

“But not now,” Jim says.

“No,” Spock answers softly.

“Huh,” Jim says. He’s aware that his voice has also gone quiet, his shoulders tense. “I think I've seen enough,” he says, and turns back to face the long walk across the courtyard to the lifts. 

***

By the time McCoy reaches the new room, Jim’s eating his third dinner, and from the look on Bones’s face when he appears in the doorway, he knows it. “What,” Jim says around a bite of soft mushroom stew. “I was out for two weeks, and now I’m doing PT two hours a day. I think my body’s finally catching up.”

Bones doesn’t say anything, which, okay, is a little weird. The thundering look leaves his face when he looks at the PADD in the doorway. He raises his eyebrows and goes to prod at the chart on the wall—a small interface, but still loaded with pulse and blood pressure and oxygen levels and hormones and nameless numbers. Jim watches.

“Yeah, okay,” Bones says after a minute. “You’re not just being your infantile self. You’re really hungry.”

“I’m sticking with the foods you specified,” Jim says, and hears a pleading note he doesn’t like in his voice. Well, sure, he’s frustrated that Bones would think he’s messing around.

“Yeah, but with the supplements we’ve been giving you, you’ve had close to three thousand k-cals today,” Bones says. “We’ve kept you on the protein supp so that you wouldn’t feel overhungry with the soft-foods diet, Jim.” He purses his lips and lets out a huff of breath. “I don’t like it,” he says finally. “Your metabolism is burning hot. We knew that from your composition scans, but I didn’t think it was going to affect you this way. I thought you were just using food more efficiently, but if your body’s demanding more now…”

“Wait, is this bad?” Jim interrupts. “I thought that hunger was a sign of recovery.”

“Well, if you were off the supplements, then yeah, this would be encouraging.” Jim can read stress now, coming off Bones in waves. “But as it is, no, I don’t like this at all. There’s no reason you should still be hungry.”

“This is a serum thing,” Jim says.

“Yeah.” Bones is turned away, tapping furiously against the screens. “Not the sort of thing we’d have noticed with the tribble. Their metabolisms are off the charts anyway. And, well, we knew it wouldn’t be a perfect analog.” He turns back, takes two strides to the bedside, and grabs Jim’s wrist, taking his pulse by hand even though the number is right there on the screen. He looks in Jim’s eyes, touches his shoulders and arms, spins to the other side of the bed to put a hand against Jim’s side and put gentle pressure on his stomach. Jim has finished the mushroom stew and he’s still hungry. He’s not sure if the nausea is digestion or fear.

“Don’t order any more tonight,” Bones says. “I’d like you to go to sleep no sooner than an hour from now but no later than two; if you’re having trouble, ring a nurse, and I’ll put a note in your chart that you can have another supp before sleep. But only if you need it to sleep. That should fill you up for long enough to…” His eyes widen slightly. “Jim?”

Jim’s going to say, “What?” but what comes out is a dry, crackling, crumbly sound, and then a low keening. Bones’s hands come to cup his face, which they’ve never done before, Bones’s hands, and normally he’d back away, shake them off, but he doesn’t move. There are fingers on his pulse again, pressure, and he feels like he did as he first woke up, heavy and slow, because the world is rushing around him and there’s noise in his ears. Bones is talking, but he’s saying nothing. Words are a drizzle in the air. Jim’s so cold, cold, and then he’s burning, and cold. Everything is so slow. There are red lights on the chart and they’re sliding through his head as alarms, as red alert, as danger. “What,” he manages finally, but Bones isn’t looking at him anymore.

_What am I_ is what he means, he thinks.

He finds it again, the source of the fear. The source of this thing widening him out inside, making hollow space where his breath is supposed to be. _It’s wrong, something about me is wrong, I went down to dark and I came back wrong_ and he’s aware of a shouting, thrashing thing inside him. There are women in white holding him down and oh fuck he is too strong, he could break them, like Khan broke him, like Khan broke Carol, like Khan broke Marcus’s face, powder and he doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want to—

When the world fades out he’s grateful, because he doesn’t deserve the world, and when it fades back in a moment later the panic is a tiny screaming thing under his skin. He’s heavy and nauseated and the muscles of his hands hurt like they’ve been ripped at. As soon as he can sense beyond his own body, he realizes he’s not alone, and _oh fuck no_.

Spock is standing next to him, wearing blue instead of gray, his face turned toward the door. He is speaking to someone; he is turning back to Jim. His brows are furrowed deeply, as if he is thinking very hard. “Jim,” he says softly, and Jim knows that they cannot both be here, not now, not while Jim is like this. He struggles to sit up. His body is too heavy, far too heavy. Spock is saying something else:

“Captain, you must remain still.” He’s heard that before, on a couple away missions, with a couple arrows in his thigh, or a couple torn ligaments, or with bruises on his neck so heavy he can feel the blood pounding under the skin, only now Jim knows it’s not himself he’s trying to protect.

“No no no,” he chants, because that’s a word his mouth can accept, and it’s pitiful, a terrible sound, he knows it’s him, this, “no no no no,” rising as he writhes against white straps that are holding him in place. He knows he’s too strong for white straps. Spock’s eyes grow wide, and he has taken several steps back, and Jim wants to beg him to run. The panic is full of him; his breath doesn’t work; there is nothing left but running and someone other than Jim is shouting for a change, someone knows the danger, someone presses the blissful sharp pain of a hypospray to his neck and he’s gone.

***

When he wakes up, everything is quiet. The room is gray, dim light through the covered window. He turns his face toward it, lifts a very weak hand. Something catches it.

“Hey,” a soft voice says, and Nyota slips gently into his peripheral vision, settling at his side. There is no chair at his bedside anymore. She’s kneeling on the floor and holding his hand. She’s holding him kind of tightly. He knows he’s been having nightmares again, and then suddenly he knows that some of them were real.

“Hey,” he says, and coughs on the word. His throat is so dry. He slips his other hand from under the sheets—he can feel, on his wrist, the thickened band of bruise where he’d struggled against restraints, and holds up three fingers with effort, then taps the index to his lips. He knows Nyota understands signs.

“Oh, of course,” she says, and pulls away from him to retrieve a bottle of water from a table a few feet away. He’s ready to take it and put it to his lips, but she pours a measure onto a soft cloth and lets it drip into his mouth. “Sorry,” she says gently. “Doctor McCoy said you’d choke if you had too much too soon.” She touches his cheek with her free hand, and it occurs to Jim what an incredibly tender gesture that is, and how little he deserves it. He inhales shakily, and she looks straight at him and says, “About thirty-six hours,” although he knows he hasn’t asked that question yet. He swallows heavily, cranes for more water, swallows again. His eyes feel swollen, but he can’t let himself sleep any longer.

“I’ll bet anything you don’t want to talk about what happened,” she says, and Jim’s never been more grateful for her skill at reading people. “Everything is okay, though. Doctor McCoy was here until about five hours ago, and he called me in to sit with you. Let me know if you’d prefer I call him. Or someone else.” He shakes his head, and she smiles at him. He thinks there’s some sadness there.

He licks his lips and croaks, “Is Spock…?” He doesn’t know how he wants to finish that sentence. She breaks eye contact for a moment.

“He’s at home,” she says. “Meditating, when I left. You... He wanted to help, but you got very upset when he came near you.”

“You look exhausted,” he says. “Emotionally, I mean.” She laughs, a bright peal echoing unexpected, shivering like something unfamiliar in the stale air around him. That’s fair, he supposes. After everything.

They sit together in silence for a long while. Jim almost drops off, but pulls himself back with her face as an anchor. They are both breathing deep and even and the light is fading through the shuttered window.

“Do you remember,” she begins finally, her voice wavering, “it,” and there can be no mistaking what she means.

“Yeah, I do,” he says, and coughs. She lets him take the water bottle this time, and he suckles at it until the roof of his mouth aches, then lets her take it back. “I think… I don’t think I could talk about it now. But when I’m ready… I think I could talk about it with you.”

They’re silent another several moments, and then Nyota starts. She slides her comm out of her waist pocket, twists her lips, and types quickly. A moment later the screen lights up her face again. She looks up at Jim.

“It’s Spock,” she says. “He’s just wondering how you’re doing.”

“Can I see?” he asks. She hands him the comm without hesitation.

_Msg incoming: Spock: Has there been a change in the captain’s status?_

_Msg outgoing: He’s awake and stable. Should I ask him if you can come to see him now?_

_Msg incoming: Spock: If he wishes to solicit my company, I am of course amenable and could join him within fifteen minutes. However, I do not wish to upset him on my account._

“Oof,” Jim says. “I really freaked him out, huh.”

“We were pretty worried,” she says, which isn’t exactly an answer.

Jim types: _I’d welcome your company, Mister Spock, but no need to hurry on my account. –Jim_ and sends.

***

Spock arrives a half-hour after Jim’s message with Doctor McCoy in tow. Nyota hastily excuses herself, leaving without offering Spock her brief but customary kiss, which he would have returned but is relieved not to need to. McCoy moves swiftly to Jim’s bedside and checks his pupils, his pulse, and his bruised wrists in such quick succession the gestures seem almost perfunctory. He seems to have gotten the information he needs, however, because he settles against the side of the captain’s bed and speaks quietly. Spock could easily hear the words in the hushed tone if he wished, but he does not allow himself to. This is not for him.

“Don’t hover,” McCoy says a moment later, and Spock realizes this is directed at him. He approaches the bed, but there is no chair beside it. Undoubtedly they had been moved out of the room when the nurses had come in the restrain Jim, removing the risk they posed. All that remains in the room, in fact, are a bottle of water, a box of paper tissue, and the large vase of flowers that has accompanied Jim for the past several days.

In lieu of a seat, Spock is aware that his usual demeanor will seem like hovering regardless of his proximity to the bedside. He stands with a hand on the raised head of the bed instead, uncomfortable with the gesture, which has no utility, but aware of the comfort humans can find in unprovoked closeness. Jim does not tense at his nearness, which is gratifying.

“Sorry you had to see me like that,” Jim says, turning his head to look at Spock while Doctor McCoy examines the charts once again. Considering the frequency with which the doctor has been redirecting attention to the monitor, Spock suspects the motion is a façade designed to create a false sense of privacy so that Spock and Jim can speak more comfortably.

“An apology does not seem logical,” Spock is compelled to say, although he is aware that the captain has not reacted well to such statements in the past. “You were unwell through no fault or failing of your own. I wished to apologize, in fact, since it was apparent that my presence was upsetting to you.”

“I was afraid of hurting people,” Jim says. Spock had, after several hours of meditation, come to the conclusion that that was the most likely reason for Jim’s reaction, and to have that hypothesis confirmed is gratifying, despite the fact that Jim’s fear is disconcerting. The captain turns his face to the doctor and says, “Bones, do you know what the hell happened to me? One minute we were talking about mushroom stew and then everything went…” He makes a twirling gesture at his temple. Spock is aware of the meaning of this gesture, and he feels his teeth clench. He does not like the implication.

“You had a panic attack,” the doctor says, which is an overly simplistic explanation, but not an inaccurate one, Spock acknowledges. “A pretty bad one, obviously.” It is unwise, Spock thinks, for the doctor to assume that that would be obvious to the captain, but undoubtedly the fact that most such attacks are not so severe is a source of comfort to him, should he be concerned about future occurrences.

“Do we know the trigger?” Jim asks. His voice is sharp and clean. Spock thinks perhaps assuming the captain understands panic attacks was not unwise, after all.

“I think it was pretty damn obvious, yeah,” McCoy answers. “You remember the last thing you asked me, before shit got bad?” Unprofessional and unmedical language, but Spock has come to accept that Doctor McCoy and the captain are well enough acquainted to set aside some of the pleasantries of Starfleet interaction and professionalism in favor of the parlance of their camaraderie.

“A serum thing,” Jim says, and McCoy puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I’m fine. _What triggered_ is a dangerous question to ask, I know, but I’m in control for now.” He narrows his eyes somewhat. “Did you end up doping me up? I know we hadn’t covered this scenario.”

“You were explicit, Jim. On the _Enterprise_ , I’d’ve probably thrown some smoothers your way, but here we don’t need you to be a captain, so I respected your wishes. Just sedated you instead. And it looks like that worked, so if you have a recurrence, you can specify sedation as your preferred response.” He looks at the captain directly and says, “For now, you’re fine. We’ve upped your protein supplements; you should be able to sleep a few more hours tonight and then you’ll be good to go for breakfast and PT in the morning.”

“Thanks,” the captain says quietly. He looks at Spock again. “Will you stay? I could use some normalcy. You can catch me up on what everyone is doing.”

“As you wish,” Spock says. Doctor McCoy slaps him on the back, grips Jim’s shoulder, offers the “if-you-need-anything” speech in its abbreviated form, and retreats.

“I know I had questions,” Jim says, “but they’ve all gone. Oh, I was looking at the roster you gave me for security. I haven’t been able to decide on a chief, and you didn’t really have glowing recommendations for any of them.”

“I assessed their skills and weaknesses to the best of my ability,” Spock acknowledges. “It’s true that there are some few disadvantages to the relative youth of our crew. None of the candidates available from within the ship have any remarkable experience. If you wish, I can widen the scope and examine possible candidates to transfer on board. The admiralty will undoubtedly accept any transfer requests you make of them.”

“Archer really wants us to succeed,” Jim says, which seems like agreement. “It seems like a slight to tap someone else, after all our crew has been through together, but I won’t choose a chief to spare someone’s feelings.”

“It may be that one of the candidates will display leadership over the course of the next several months,” Spock says. “There will be ample opportunity. You asked about the crew—they have been largely dedicated to assisting with the efforts to clear debris from the city, and I suspect as much as fifty percent of them will remain focused on that task, whether by the request of the Fleet or on a volunteer basis, for the remainder of our time grounded. Engineer Scott has been with the _Enterprise_ , meanwhile, along with six of his crew and ten of the contract employees at the shipyard. To date they have been removing unsalvageable material, a process which took longer than anticipated, but according to Lieutenant Commander Scott, they began rebuilding the hull this morning.”

“Perfect,” Jim says, which seems to Spock like a strange choice of a word to apply to the situation. “Have you been assigned duties for our grounded time yet?”

“Negative. I have delayed requesting assignment. I suspect that if I do not seek out work in the reoutfitting of the _Enterprise_ , I will be placed at the Academy for a semester.”

“Mm,” Jim says. Spock suspects he is wondering what his own assignment will be. For that matter, Spock knows the answer—Admiral Archer has declared very firmly that Captain Kirk will not be assigned extra duties, but that when recovered, he will have frequent meetings with the admiralty and the discretion to guide the reoutfit if he wishes. Spock has wondered whether Jim’s love of the ship is a strong enough counter to his previously expressed dislike of Riverside.

“I wish I knew how long I was really going to be here,” Jim said. “I keep meaning to ask Bones if there’s a real estimate on my release date. I guess this fuckery probably set me back a week at least.” He looks angry.

“You dislike medical intervention,” Spock says.

“I’ve always trusted Bones to take care of me. But the whole thing—hospital gowns, sterile white rooms, intravenous supps, charts, monitoring, all the limitations on food, changing staff, being vidded while I sleep—yeah, it freaks me out.”

“Do you distrust the hospital staff?” Spock asks.

“No, it’s not the staff that bothers me. Or rarely, at least. I just…” He gestures around the room. “I like a place to be mine. I want my bed back. And my clothes, and my kitchen. I’ve got Carol’s flowers, and that’s kind of cool since I’ve never been able to have flowers before.”

Spock had been unaware that the floral arrangement at the captain’s bedside was from Lieutenant Marcus. He had felt a sense of comfort with them, the constant, and the reminder that Jim would emerge from this painful experience with some small measure more safety than before, if nothing else. Thinking of Marcus buying the captain flowers, however, he feels discomfort. This is illogical, he decides. His grudge against Marcus, and feelings of distrust toward her, were both based on outmoded data.

“Anyway,” Jim says, “I miss my chessboard. I know you play—Old You told me. Would you be up for a game?”

“When you are well, I would be more than amenable,” Spock says, studiously ignoring the reference to his counterpart.

“Excellent,” Jim says with a sharp nod, and looks away. Spock can think of nothing more to say. The captain takes two, three deep breaths, and then asks, “Will you talk to me about Khan?”

He finds that he has anticipated this question in some part of his subconscious, because there is an answer partially formed—a response beyond the immediate _no_ he wishes to shout at the mere mention of the man’s name. “I told you,” Spock says, “at your bedside, when you were senseless to the world and your recovery seemed uncertain, that there were matters I wished to discuss when you woke. I have found myself at a loss to begin them.” He pauses. “But the man you named… I do not have any desire to speak of him. I cannot predict that I ever will.”

Jim swallows. His lips twitch, and he looks away from Spock, toward the darkened corner of the room, which holds nothing. Spock understands that eye contact would make Jim emotional at present, and that he is attempting to retain control. Respectfully, he averts his own gaze. They are both quiet for a long moment, and Spock wonders if his rejection was too harsh for this moment.

“I missed it,” Jim says finally.

“Captain?”

“They keep telling me about this—this thing you did for me, before you even knew I had a shot, this—and I missed it. You made a show for my sake, and I can’t even imagine it, Spock.”

_Is that what you regret?_ Spock almost asks, but instead he says, “Nyota has nightmares about that ‘show,’ captain. It was not a moment I would choose to have you witness, even were it possible for me to do so.” He does not say that it is possible.

“I think those kinds of moments are the ones that tell the most about you, though,” Jim says. “Yeah?”

“I perceive the rationality behind your proposal. It does not alter my answer.”

“Fine, yeah,” Jim says. “I mean… Spock, I’m sorry. You’ve done so much for me. What gives me the right to ask for more?”

There are answers Spock could give to that question, but he recognizes it as rhetorical and does not speak. The silence vibrates with slow tension, but it fades. After a few minutes, Spock can see his captain’s muscles begin to relax into sleep. He stands from his place at the bedside and begins to move toward the door.

“I’m going to hold you to that game, once I’m out of here,” Jim murmurs. Spock turns in the doorway to face him. His eyes are closed, his expression strangely peaceful.

“Of course, Jim,” he says. “Good night.”


	5. five.

The night after Jim regained consciousness, Starfleet’s most qualified doctors predicted that his recuperation would take four to six weeks. He would be bedridden for the first half, hospitalized with 10-hour days of physical therapy for the second. “The serum wreaked havoc on everything,” Dr. McCoy had commented to Spock as they stood outside Jim’s room later, as the Captain slept, “but it did him good, too. More good than I want to admit to the brass. So don’t be surprised if they underestimate the kid’s bounceback.” 

Two weeks later, Jim smirks across a chessboard, settled into a chair in Spock’s quarters, looking lithe and lively. 

“Your move, Mr. Spock.” 

“I am aware, Captain.” 

Jim twists one of Spock’s captured rooks between his fingers and gazes at the board. He’s fascinated—that was the word he’d used—by the way Spock’s eyes darted across the spaces. His motions seem lazy or impulsive, but Spock has played enough games with his captain to learn that the appearance is deceiving. Jim is not his equal in chess, but among the humans Spock has consented to play, he is peerless. 

Spock lifts his queen across several empty spaces and sets it down wordlessly. Jim’s smile solidifies. 

“I’m going to win this one,” he says, clearly self-satisfied. 

“Your conclusion seems premature,” Spock says, “and your announcement does not serve in the interests of your goal. You have given me a warning to reassess my strategy.” 

“Perhaps that’s what I want,” Jim shoots back. “Did you think of that?” 

“I had considered it. My current strategy has proved quite effective in the past. It would be in your interests to introduce doubt into my mind. However, you have made such a proclamation on six occasions and failed to follow through. I find it likely your expression is prevaricated solely upon bravado. You are not aware of my intentions, therefore it is highly unlikely that you can accurately predict the outcome of the game. You are simply overstating your confidence to undercut mine.” 

“You make it sound so dirty,” Jim says, his eyebrows knit. 

Spock raises an eyebrow. “Your attribution of that interpretation to me is disingenuous. Your choice to hear my logical and factual statements as ‘dirty’ has no bearing on how I ‘made it sound.’” 

Jim laughs, a bright peal in the dim room, throwing his head back. Spock sees the corner of his mouth catch in a sudden wince—undoubtedly the sharp movement has jarred a muscle sore from an overabundance of bed rest and overzealous use of hyposprays. He refrains from expressing concern. He does not wish for his captain to continue hurting needlessly, and he knows that Jim carried in with him a number of analgesic hyposprays. But Jim has waved off Spock’s attention several times already, and his desire not to irritate the captain overrides his concern. 

“Check,” Jim says with his piece still midair. He sets it out of range of Spock’s bishop. Spock estimates three moves each until checkmate. He slides his king to its left. 

Jim moves his queen decisively. “Check.” Spock reassesses quickly. Five moves each. Perhaps six, if Jim manages to avoid sacrificing his black bishop. 

“I remember, you know,” Jim says while Spock is intent on the board. The room is already silent, but it feels to Spock as if a thick cover drops over them, muffling even the faint susurrus of air. He seems, Spock observes from the tension he can see from his peripheral vision, to hope this is a conversation they will be able to have in the background of the game. Spock is not certain of his ability to maintain appropriate composure if he brings his attention entirely to his captain, so he moves his king left again with a sharp click. 

“What do you remember, Jim?” 

Jim is silent a moment. His attention shifts, rapidfire, between Spock and the board. He moves his queen again. “Check.” He clears his throat. “Spock, you… you cried.” 

Tension ripples through Spock’s throat, like a tearing in those muscles. He finds the whole of his throat suddenly painfully sore. His mother had told him once, when he was a child, that this was a human symptom of holding back an emotional outburst, crying in particular. He had coldly denied being on the edge of tears at the time, and had dismissed the symptom and rhythmically unclenched his throat each subsequent time he had experienced it. Until now he had never acknowledged that what his mother had said was true. 

“I’m sorry,” Jim says. “When I woke up, I thought—I’d let it be. We wouldn’t speak of it. I thought it might be hard. But I didn’t realize how hard it would be _not_ to acknowledge it. I saw it, Spock. It was one of the last things I saw. I can’t forget that.” 

“I would not ask you to,” Spock says. “I have… regretted it, Jim. I wish I could have been calm for you. I wish I could have helped you to not be afraid.” 

“Spock,” Jim answers, and his voice is so soft that Spock has to look at his face, to see if he is in pain. “You did,” he whispers. “You were _there_. And I knew…” He pauses, licks his lips, shakes his head, and corrects himself. “I _died_ knowing—that even if you couldn’t say it, you’d have missed me, too. I regretted causing you pain. Spock, for you to cry in front of Nyota, and Scotty, I knew…”

“I had not known,” Spock says. “Until the moment Mister Scott summoned me, I had not known that the friendship I felt for you went as deep as yours for me.” 

“I thought of what you said on Mudd’s ship. That you had chosen not to feel those things again. I thought about that a lot. I’m sorry that you—”

“I am not, Jim,” Spock says. “I am not sorry.” 

“It’s your move,” Jim says quietly. 

Spock looks down at the board and sees, suddenly, Jim’s winning move, one move away. He pushes his king into position. 

“Checkmate,” he says softly. “I am aware.” 

“Fuck that,” Jim says, and his voice rises back to its normal, belligerent timbre. He flicks a finger, knocking over his own king. “Do you know what Bones said to me, when you were in the volcano?” 

Spock does know. Dr. McCoy had told him of the conversation, in their many days standing over Jim’s biobed together. He had apologized, in his gruff way. “Kid inspires something crazy in all of us, I guess,” he’d said. Now Spock says only, “Yes.” 

“Was he right?” 

“Are you asking if I would choose to break the Prime Directive, if your life was in the balance?” 

Jim hesitates. “Yes. I am asking that.” 

“I cannot say.” 

Spock expects Jim to shout, or for his face to close, or for him to get up and leave the room. Instead he nods, his expression blossoming into a wry not-quite-smile. “Good,” he says. 

“Captain?” 

“If I had to do it again,” Jim says, “I’d still save you. But I’d find another goddamn way.” 

“You still do not believe in no-win scenarios.” 

Jim croaks a weak laugh. “Well, not when _you’re_ what I’m losing,” he said. “But Spock, you were there. I lived the Kobayashi Maru. I died the Kobayashi Maru. And I was afraid. Remember?” He takes a shuddering breath and stands from his chair, wood scraping against the wooden flooring. “I passed the test,” he says. 

“I never wished—”

“You did. When you designed the test, you must have thought that some of the men and women who faced it would experience the no-win scenario someday. You wished for them to pass then, even if they failed the sim.” 

“But I did not believe in them,” Spock says. “I doubted their capabilities. I was arrogant. Nyota told me as much, and even then I maintained, to myself, that she suffered the same abundance of feeling that caused student after student to fail my simulation. I did not believe in you, Jim. I believed your depth of emotion rendered you incapable of passing the test I had been asked to set for you. In the end, if I am not incorrect, it was exactly that emotion that enabled your sacrifice.” He chokes on the last word. 

“The needs of the many,” Jim says, and looks away. He laughs humorlessly. “I don’t even know what I want you to say.” 

Spock regains his composure to respond to this. “I doubt very much that anything I can say at this juncture would be sufficient to provide any catharsis. You have experienced an ordeal. It is illogical for you to hold yourself to a previous ideal of clarity while you recover.” 

“Trust you to put it in the warmest, fuzziest way,” Jim mutters. “All right. I’ll work on that. Embracing how shitty and confused I feel.” He looks down at the chessboard and frowns. 

“It is natural, Jim.” 

“Not a damn thing about this is natural,” Jim answers, and shrugs on his jacket with another wince. “Thanks for the game, Spock. Goodnight.” 

Spock cleans up the pieces slowly, inefficiently, hoping that the time it takes to perform the quiet task will be sufficient to clear his mind.


	6. six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am SO SORRY it took me so long to post this. I wrote a lot more than I remembered, so after coming back to your kind comments and encouragements tonight, I went to see how much work I had yet to do and realized I was two paragraphs away from finishing Chapter Six. It's shorter than most, but Chapter Seven is also 50% done. That got a bit unwieldy, though, so I'm adding a Chapter Eight.
> 
> Still, the end (of this part) is in sight.

The captain does not comm Spock in the days following. Doctor McCoy assures him that Jim is “as well as could be expected,” a phrase Spock’s mother had used often and with a laugh. Spock finds this reassuring and discomfiting simultaneously. The doctor offers no words of explanation as to the reason for the lack of contact. It is illogical for Spock to assume that the doctor is aware of a reason, but he finds that he believes it nonetheless.

After a night of fitful meditation, Spock had found himself glad that the captain had addressed the specter of his death, had spoken of it aloud. Previously, he’d vacillated between hoping that Kirk remembered those last moments and that they would remain hazy, as surely they had been physically agonizing. But Kirk had found something of value in their final (not final) exchange.

Spock had sent a message to Kirk’s comm: _When you are sufficiently rested, I would appreciate your presence. Any duties allowing, we may play a game of chess and brief on further topics of professional interest._ There was no response.

That evening he sent: _Captain Kirk, may I ascertain your continued wellbeing?_

The next morning: _Captain, your lack of response is uncharacteristic of you. Please contact me briefly at your earliest convenience._ And then to Doctor McCoy, _I assume you would have contacted me if Captain Kirk had been readmitted to your care, yet I feel obligated to confirm that I am not mistaken, as he has not acknowledged my comms._

The response came almost immediately. _He’s fine—as well as can be expected. I saw him this morning. Never took you for the clingy type._

The second evening after the captain had left Spock’s quarters, Spock comms Nyota.

“How is he?” she asks, in replacement of her traditional opening question _how are you?_ Then, before he is aware that he has conveyed a response through his body language, she tilts her head at him. “I’m sorry. I assumed you’d been meeting.”

“We did play a game of chess the night before last,” Spock says. “He left… perhaps somewhat upset. He has not responded to my attempts to communicate since.” She understands that there is a plea buried in this confession. Her lips tighten almost imperceptibly, and she clicks her tongue in thought, her eyes straying from the vid feed.

“Well, I know McCoy has seen him,” she says. “Sulu might have, too. But Chekov and Monty have both intentionally made themselves scarce. I think they want Jim to come to them. Which is a bit stupid of them. He’s been through a lot. I’m sure he wants to see his friends.”

“Be that as it may, he does not seem to have been particularly forthcoming in soliciting their company.”

“ _Our_ company,” Nyota says without missing a beat. “Don’t fool yourself, we’re his friends too.” Spock does not bother to respond; he has learned the patterns of her speech well enough to recognize when she expects a verbal reaction. After a moment, she says, “I’ll speak with him. He can’t be hard to find.”

McCoy sends Spock a message later that night— _Nyota says he still hasn’t gotten back to you. Incidentally, when I asked, she admitted that you’ve made yourself scarce, too. I’ll talk to him, but if he wants some space, you could maybe spend some time with your girlfriend instead. Just something we illogical humans call_ friendly advice.

Late the next afternoon, Spock invites Nyota to join him for a bottle of wine—a French white, neither sweet nor dry, as she prefers—and they sit on the couch and talk quietly about topics irrelevant to the matters heaviest on Spock’s mind. Nyota suggests they could go out to dinner. Hesitantly, she says that she knows a quiet place; hesitantly as if she expects him to be angry at her for the accommodation of his desire to avoid excessive socialization.

It would make her happy, and that is something he wishes for. There had been a note of accusation in Doctor McCoy’s message that had not escaped him—the indication that perhaps Nyota had expressed, verbally or through more subtle cues, that she was unhappy that they two had not spent much time together lately.

But he does not wish to sit in a booth in a lantern-lit space on the outskirts of San Francisco and peruse a holomenu. Surely Nyota can see it, he thinks—her skills as a linguist have always been bolstered by her empathy, her attention to small physical cues. She continues to look at him expectantly, her fingers curved around her wineglass, the top of her bare foot absently rubbing his calf through his regulation black pants.

“Would you be amenable to an alternative?” Spock asks. “It has been months since last we ordered cuisine from Old Thailand.”

“That’s because the one curry shop we could agree on was destroyed in the crash,” Nyota says. Her voice is flat. She is angry.

“That is highly regrettable,” Spock says. “I know that you found both the food and the personnel to be pleasant.” He is immediately aware that this response has not appeased her. “You are continuing to experience difficulty with my lack of emotional reaction to the events of three weeks ago.”

“I just,” she says, turning her face away to hide the tears that he can tell are in her eyes, “there are so many things for which I know I can rely on you, so many things that make this work. But I need outside support to substitute for the shared emotional catharsis that many human couples would have. And I haven’t been seeking it.”

“You have been offered leave,” Spock says. “I do not wish to be parted from you, but if it is necessary for your continued health, and for the integrity of our relationship, I might suggest you take advantage of that leave on your own.”

“You want me to go on vacation?” Her voice wavers—flat, incredulous.

“It has been five months since you last visited your sister in person,” he answers. Her intake of breath is unexpected. He frowns. “My apologies, Nyota. Have I misunderstood you?”

“No,” she breathes after a moment. “I… I think I would like that, Spock. You wouldn’t mind if I went alone?”

“As I said, any action you wish to take to bolster your own wellbeing is logical, and so I embrace it.” He does not say that he would not have accepted an invitation to join her even if she offered it.

“I wouldn’t go right away,” she says quickly. “There’s too much we’re still working on, in design and rebuilding, I’d need to set up a few officers to work with Scotty while I was gone. We’re experimenting with strengthening the subspace links with Starfleet. We can’t afford to lose contact in these moments of crisis.” Spock is aware of all the efforts her department has been making. He has been reading every log. He does not say so. “But just knowing that was on the horizon could help. I’ll make the arrangements; I’ll let you know.” She sighs. Her expression is clearer.

They end up synthesizing an Indonesian dish that Nyota ate often on the ship. She seems preoccupied, but continue to offer him small gestures of physical contact, as if in reassurance. He does not tell her there is no need. He does not tell her it is his preference to eat unhindered by her hand on his elbow. He does not tell her that he is wondering what the Captain is eating, or whether he is eating at all. Instead they speak of backup generators, repairs to the water mains, the messages from the VSA with recommendations about dispersing the ambient radiation. They speak of the city beyond them as if it is even emptier than it is, as if the city itself is the creature about whom they should be concerned. Spock does not say any of this, but he suspects that Nyota knows.


	7. seven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, hell. I already changed my mind. You guys have waited a good long while. I'll make chapter seven a little shorter so I can just give you what I've got right now -- and chapter eight will be a long one.

Nyota visits Spock in his apartment two days after returning from a week in Nairobi with her sister. She is… the sentimental literature she sometimes enjoys would call her _radiant_. A sense of ease permeates her features that has been absent for the seven weeks they have been grounded, and perhaps much longer than Spock had moved himself to notice.

It has been three weeks since Jim Kirk left Spock after their game of chess, and Spock has seen him only once, from a distance. (Four days earlier, from the fourteenth story of the ‘Fleet’s library, ensconced in a study room with three-hundred-year old history, Spock had looked down to the grounds and recognized Jim’s stride. He could not see the man’s face, but the walk was enough. It was not as it had been. He walked with deliberation, and at that moment there had been no bounce in his step. His hair reflected some measure of evening sunlight.)

Nyota sits at the counter in Spock’s kitchenette, one sun-darkened leg crossed across the other, her feet bare. She is beautiful. Spock knows that she has been anticipating this evening for them to spend together, in quiet talk and later, intimate gestures, sexual release, perhaps a light touching of their minds for the first time since Admiral Pike’s death. She had spoken of it twice over the vid, smiled in a very fierce and human way and said, “I’m having a wonderful time, but I’m looking forward to coming back, too,” with an undertone of sexual energy rippling through her otherwise innocuous words.

“It is very pleasing to be in your presence, and more so for the contrast with your absence,” Spock says softly, sitting beside her and setting a glass tumbler of wine before her. He has water, for himself. She looks at him with great gentleness.

“Thank you,” she says. She looks away for a moment, and then says, “I hope this won’t upset you, but I saw Jim today.”

Spock cocks his head to one side. “That is unexpected but not unwelcome.”

“We had tea together. At the Russian shop outside the university.” She chuckles a little. “ _Tea_. With Jim Kirk. If you’d have told me three years ago…” She trails off, but Spock is familiar with the saying.

“I do confess I had not judged the captain as a man who enjoyed teas.”

“He’s learning,” she says, almost chiding. She shakes her head. “I know you still haven’t seen him. He mentioned it. We talked a good long while, actually; I’d planned to restock my place before coming over but by the time I was done there was barely time for a shower.”

Spock recognizes, from a distance, an emotion that is somewhere between _envy_ and _jealousy_. He catalogues it and stores it, in its nuance and completion, away from his current consciousness.

“How is the captain?” he asks carefully.

“A little better, a little worse,” she sighs. “He’s coping, you know, and we talked about ship’s business and some of the drama with the admiralty. And we talked about you, and a little bit about Carol. He’s worried about her, which is almost funny, coming from him.”

“I fail to see any humor. His concern seems quite valid.”

“Right, but I mean, in contrast to his careless attitude about his own difficulties,” she says, wincing.

“I see.” He is finding it difficult let the previous offhand comment pass; his curiosity overcomes his desire to let her carry the conversation where she wishes. “May I enquire as to the portion of your conversation that concerned me?”

“Of course,” she says. “It wasn’t much. I asked if he’d seen you, and he said no, and later when he mentioned Pike, he… we talked about the fact that the two of you had been close.”

Spock does not tell her about the sharp spike of emotion that slips past his control when she says this. He suspects that if he did, she would label it _being uncomfortable_ , and the accompanying bodily sensations do validate that description. He knows the source of this disturbance. He has spoken of Admiral Pike so rarely that he cannot imagine Nyota knows much of their relationship, and it is a topic that he has never discussed (not yet) with Kirk. Nevertheless, what she has stated is not untrue, and he does not wish to police Nyota’s conversations, even when he is the subject.

“And then the rest of the conversation was just about his recovery,” she says, more quickly, some artificial levity injected into her tone, which tells Spock that this is important. “And he was a lot more honest than I’d expect. I mean, I know he talks to Leonard about some of this, but it’s a matter of business between them, at least to some extent. And since he hadn’t talked to you, I assumed he just wasn’t ready to reach out, and I was going to respect that. But then he commed me yesterday, and suggested the teahouse, which seemed so unlike him, you know?” Spock does not feel the need to affirm this; he has already expressed his shared surprise at the choice of venue. Their hands have come together on the table, tangled the human way, and Spock allows himself, for a moment, to feel her anxiety and understand it.

She looks at him, her eyes wide. “He’s _not_ doing well,” she says. “I mean, we have no right to expect he would be, but… he’s having nightmares every night. And he hasn’t stopped having panic attacks—I didn’t know he’d had any since he left the hospital. But then the tea—so, Len figured out he’s not metabolizing a lot of things right. And they don’t want to mess with it—Jim’s really uneasy about it. Alcohol, caffeine, you know. So he’s doing herbal teas. And he’s started to make his own. I guess he went to a bunch of shops and has a little of everything. I asked him if he’d make some for us.”

Spock raises an eyebrow in surprise.

“I said you like star anise and cloves, and I thought maybe rosehip and blueberry. Is that right?”

It is. He is surprised that she noticed, and remembers these things, and is touched that she would solicit such a gift for him, and pleasantly apprehensive to try whatever the Captain may assemble for his tastes.

“Thank you, Nyota,” he says, pulling his gaze from hers to look at their hands, and he presses some of his gratefulness into her fingers, alongside the other things.

She smiles and leans into him. He lifts a hand to put around her shoulders; she moves closer to him, half-off her chair, their bodies warm together.

“He does want to see you,” she whispers.

Spock feels himself stiffen. He finds his throat tight, but his muscles are obedient when he pushes them to relax, and he says, “He has failed to convince me of that fact.”

“He does. He misses you. But…”

“I do not believe I wish to hear the excuse you would provide for him.”

“Spock, he’s not doing well. I think you should seek him out.”

“The fact that he is unwell is much of the reason I have chosen not to do so.”

“When have you ever trusted that man to know what’s best for him?”

“It is not my place to question his decision.”

Nyota sighs, pulls back, and meets his eyes again. What she says is soft, but not without reproach. “It’s exactly your place,” she says softly, and they continue their evening as if the subject of Jim Kirk never entered it, but in his mind, Spock returns to those words again and again.

***

In the days that follow, Spock reaches out to other senior members of the crew. He finds that Nyota’s analysis had been correct. Each of them has chosen to stay withdrawn until Jim makes an overture, expresses a need. It is not until he catalogues and examines frustration with their logic that he is able to admit that his own is also at fault.

Mister Scott says, “I cannae be sure that he wants to see me,” although Spock knows that the captain holds no misplaced blame against the engineer.

Ensign Chekov laughs nervously and his eyes dart desperately to Lieutenant Sulu, with whom he is having lunch when Spock approaches, seeming to hope that the pilot will provide a reason for both of them.

Sulu grimaces and says, “Well, we’ve seen him, you know, across the quad, but it’s like he’s ignoring us. He just keeps walking, and so we do the same. I think he still feels awkward that we all took shifts on nightmare watch, so I figured maybe he needs his space.”

“I think perhaps ze keptin thinks I am too young to talk about these things,” Chekov adds, “but when he is ready, he will find he is wrong.”

Spock is unable to find Lieutenant Marcus.

The third time Spock encounters McCoy in the hospital, the doctor scowls and says, “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll let you find him. If he doesn’t, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” Spock considers Nyota’s quiet entreaty a few days before, _When have you ever trusted that man to know what’s best for him?_ He does not repeat it. The doctor continues to scowl. Spock leaves.

He comms Jim, _I wish to see you._

Jim answers immediately, _I’m out of town._

Spock traces the message to Riverside.


	8. eight.

Even in its wreckage—or perhaps _especially_ in its wreckage— _The Enterprise_ is an intimidating size. Spock walks all of those corridors that are passable from bow to stern twice, then sits in his chair on the semidark bridge for nearly an hour in an appreciative silence, close to meditation and closer than he would admit aloud to sentiment. The sounds of repairs in the gut of the ship are a distant whir from here, not the rattling and screeching he’d heard below as engineers moved and welded plates of duranium and transparent aluminum on the hulls of nearly every deck.

It is possible, of course, that Jim is not on the ship itself. Spock is aware that he grew up in this part of Iowa, although he has never expressed any fondness for the town. Under other circumstances, he would think the next course of action would be to rent a vee and make a tour of the nearby bars, but Nyota’s report made it clear that the captain was not imbibing alcohol. Spock had judged the odds at 94.6% that the captain was on board. Of course, his data set is incomplete; he is aware of his ignorance of the variables. Perhaps Jim has friends in Riverside. Extended family, or a family doctor. Perhaps he still owns a home here, and has retired to its solitude. Perhaps he was here, but has already departed. The odds jumble.

He had hoped to find his captain by probability and effort, but after a few more fruitless minutes alone on the bridge, he reactivates a console and asks the computer where the Captain is. The answer is cool and swift: “Captain Kirk is in the astrometrics lab.”

Spock had been to the astrometrics lab twice and found it empty. He ventures through a broken corridor on deck four for a third time. The doors are wedged open with a thick metallic pipe, and although the main lighting is not activated, he can see the glow of blueish lights from the large screen within.

“Took you long enough,” the Captain says as Spock ducks under the pipe, his voice so quiet that Spock is uncertain whether he was meant to hear. Jim is bent over a dim console, his back hunched in an unforgiving position, and through the darkness his light hair is shot through with color from the screens, his face shadowed in a way that other humans might have deemed eerie. Spock quirks a brow, but the Captain seems to take no notice, so he refocuses his attention to study the images on the large screen. Just now the view seems to be of a city map, the view panning down a street toward an electrical substation. As the substation approaches, Jim’s fingers fly over the console and the image shifts, drawing a swift connection across a mile of land, toward the water.

It is a blueprint holomap of San Francisco.

“If you have not been made aware, I should inform you that city officials have already created accurate holomaps of the damage,” Spock says. “They are accessible to all Starfleet officers at work on the recovery efforts.”

Jim looks up from the console, a crooked grin flashing across his face. Spock feels a punch of emotion somewhere at his core. He had not realized how much sentiment he attached to that smile until he had passed so many weeks without it.

“Come here,” Jim says, and his voice is light, wry, playful. Spock approaches the console, clasping his hands behind his back, but he has been standing beside his captain for a matter of seconds when he unclasps his hands instinctively, reaching for the console to confirm what he sees.

Jim is not building a map of the damage. He is designing a recovery plan.

“May I?” he asks after a moment, and at Jim’s nod takes over at the console, retreating to an aerial view. Even at less than ten percent completion, it is clear that Jim’s project presents a viable option. He has drawn the barest outlines of districts and zoning, closely conforming to pre-disaster San Francisco, but there are drastic changes already evident to the electric and transportation subsystems and the water mains. “This design is highly intuitive,” he says after several moments.

“Mister Spock, you’re practically gushing.”

“I assure you I am not. However, your work merits close examination. Presently you have substations in these locations, correct?” Six blue indicator dots glow brighter. Jim nods again. Spock draws the view in closer.

“Given the efficient pattern you are establishing, I would assume your next locations would be here, and here,” Spock says, selecting points to highlight. “If I am correct, I recommend you reconsider in favor of these two positions.” His suggestion lights up in red.

Jim’s fingers sweep rapidly across the screen again, jamming harder than they need to against it as he programs in the choices indicated. Once all four have been inputted, he looks up at the screen and laughs aloud. His eyes crinkled, he looks over to meet Spock’s eyes, and then he quiets and grows serious, his face relaxing into neutrality, eyes flashing in the blue glow.

“I’m sorry I’ve kept away,” Jim says. “We work better together. I shouldn’t forget that so quickly.” He quiets, casting his gaze back to the screen, and shifts the angle of the view several times. When he speaks again, he says, “I was afraid you’d tell me I’m emotionally compromised. I was afraid you’d see that I am, I guess I mean.”

“You find it undesirable for me to perceive your emotional state?”

“I find it… I don’t know. Not undesirable, though, no. Just difficult.” He closes the program. Spock feels both surprise and trepidation: he does not wish for this conversation to end abruptly. But instead of making to depart, Jim leans back against the darkened console, unhurried. His expression is unreadable in the dark, but his posture does not indicate a lack of ease.

“We did discuss our mutual emotional compromise prior to your release from the hospital,” Spock offers, although he is certain Jim has not forgotten. Jim swallows.

“Well, I feel like we were talking about the kind of thing everyone’s feeling. The confusion, and fear, and anger, and grief. And I’ve got all that, sure, and I slept through a lot so there was some catching up I had to do with everybody else on that front. But I’m…” He shakes his head. “I’m really screwed up in a lot of other ways, too. It’s hard even to say that. My body, my mind, my dreams. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…”

Spock feels the irrational urge to point out that this fictional royal had clearly not had the resources of Jim’s crew at his command. Were there not a high probability of the gesture being misinterpreted, he would allow the corner of his mouth to quirk in recognition of the humor of that indignation. Instead he says with a carefully measured tone, “If vulnerability is your concern, I can assure you that your ill health will not affect my perception of you as my captain.”

“I just don’t feel right,” Jim says. “I don’t want anyone to see me if I’m not being myself, but I don’t know, maybe I just have to adjust to some of this reality.”

“I would not wish to see you compromise on an incomplete state of healing,” Spock says. “If that is your intention, it seems you are indeed not yourself.”

Jim huffs a little, and looks around, raising his arms but not saying anything for a moment. “This…” he says finally. “This is weird. Want to take this somewhere else?”

“I defer to your preference, Captain.”

“Jim,” Jim reminds him. “Are you hungry? These are my old stomping grounds. I know some good dinner places, and I’ve rented some wheels for the day.” He pauses, and adds, “My treat.” His demeanor is anxious, although Spock is not inclined to read into the emotion, considering the volatility of the captain’s emotional state over the course of the last few weeks.

“That would be acceptable,” he says.

They disembark via the decontamination shafts and make for the vee lot. Jim stops in front of a motorcycle and raises his brow at Spock, who returns the gesture before recognizing the implication.

“These are your ‘wheels’?”

“Yeah, I’m big on these,” Jim says, and Spock thinks that the captain should be smirking, but instead his anxiety remains clear, not even presenting a façade of mischief. “I had one before I joined Starfleet, but I gave it away… There’s room for two, and I have helmets. Or we can call a cab. That’s okay too.”

“This is suitable,” Spock says. His father had owned a vee, but he had not ever asked to ride it. Still, Sarek’s approval of the form of transportation reassures Spock to some extent as to its safety. He straps on his own helmet, studying the captain as he does the same, and waits for Jim to climb on. The space meant for Spock is smaller than he would normally desire, but not so small as to feel unsafe. The ride will be intimate.

“Is the contact going to be okay?” Jim asks.

“If at any point I am uncomfortable with this mode of travel, I will inform you,” Spock says, sliding his leg over the seat and finding first one peg on which to rest his heel, then the other.

“’Preciate it,” Jim says, lifting his voice as he turns the engine. The vee gutters and spits, but Spock feels Jim relax. Before lifting his own feet, Jim twists to look back and wiggles his fingers, then touches his own side. Spock reaches to grasp where Jim had indicated, and then Jim kicks off.

The ride is surprisingly pleasant. A spray of sand accompanies hard turns, but after a few minutes they are on a solid stretch of asphalt, and the air is dry, the wind harsh and cooling, the sun dimming into evening. Keeping grasp on Jim is not difficult, and they do not try to speak over the noise. For all the motion and action and closeness, the feeling of calm that accompanies the ride is not dissimilar to the state that comes after meditation.

Spock has visited Riverside before, with Admiral Pike, when he had been named First Officer. They had walked the halls of the Enterprise and spoken of past missions, and afterwards Pike had suggested they retire to a wine bar. Spock remembered the place for its vegetarian fare—a bright orange soup made of root vegetables that had been most satisfactory, a large salad decorated with an overabundance of inoffensive cheeses, and a half-glass from Pike’s bottle of burgundy. It had been a pleasant night, one of many he had spent with the then-Captain, but they had spoken little of personal affairs. Spock had expressed some dissatisfaction with the lack of academic rigor in a class he was teaching of second-year cadets, and Pike had told stories about recruiting. Then, after three drinks and a pale liqueur, Pike had spoken of his partner briefly, but they retreated back into speaking of business after scarcely two minutes of personal discussion.

The restaurant that Jim chooses is similarly intimate to Pike’s preferred venue, empty when they enter, with a narrow front and a deep interior room. The host shakes Jim’s hand firmly, and they speak briefly and quietly. Jim gestures toward cushioned seats in the corner. The lighting is warm against the décor, and they weave through a collection of dark padded seats and cherrywood-polished tables toward the corner booth, which has plush backing and a lacquered table.

“Are you okay with dairy?” Jim asks after they’ve been sitting for a moment.

“In moderation,” Spock answers.

“Then I recommend the farmer’s flatbread. Pears, golden beets, and goat cheese. It’s my favorite. Everything here is made with local ingredients; it’s a farm-to-table place. The beets are grown about six miles from where I grew up. The pears are from further south, but they’re sourced from a small farm, not one of the big commercial joints.”

“Will you be ordering it as well?”

“Naw, I’m still on a pretty high-protein diet. Even with a heavy meal, I’m going to have to take a meal supp in a couple hours to hit my quota.” He glances down at the menu and grins. “I can get the edamame, though! I’m not allergic to soy anymore, according to Bones.”

They order and sit in stillness for a moment before Jim clears his throat and waits for Spock to meet his eyes. “I hope you weren’t upset,” he says, “or, I mean, whatever the logical version of upset is, that I didn’t ask _you_ out to tea. I’m sure things haven’t been the way you expected.”

“On the contrary, Jim,” Spock says, quirking a brow, “I have no reason to expect a privileged place in your social calendar.” He’s curious, so curious, what Jim might think he expected, and he imagines asking, imagines his captain might flush when he asked, and thinks that should discourage him. It does not, and that is unsettling.

“Nyota seemed to think otherwise,” Jim admits, still locking eyes. “She yelled at me, before I left, for not talking to you. I feel like I should explain, but I know my explanations are shitty. I mean, they’re more excuses than explanations.”

“I believe I gave you a piece of advice before you left my apartment during our last social encounter,” Spock says. “You paraphrased it as ‘embracing how shitty and confused’ you felt. Please understand that I am aware of your emotional compromise, Jim, and I do not reject it. _Kaiidth._ ”

“I’ve heard that before,” Jim says, shifting slightly to the side so that their server doesn’t have to reach around him to set down the edamame. “Refresh my memory?”

“My apologies—it is a phrase I use frequently; I assumed I had used it in your presence. The closest Standard translation, I believe, would be: _what is, is._ ”

“I can see why you never did,” Jim says, grinning. “I can’t imagine I would have taken it well if you tried to talk me down from Nibiru or something by telling me to accept what is.” He sobers, crunches consideringly into the edamame, and when he has finished chewing, says, “I get it now, though. The more I’ve tried to deny this reality, the worse it’s gotten.”

“I am willing to listen.”

“You remember when I had the panic attack, in the hospital, and I told you later I was afraid I was going to hurt you,” he says, and now for the first time in several minutes he looks away. “Bones figured something out after that. It’s in my file, and he must know I’ve read it, but we haven’t talked about it. When I was in the coma, I gained muscle mass, and I’ve kept at it ever since then. I’ve stopped PT, I’ve stopped working out, I’ve stopped running which has been _killing_ me—sorry, sorry, figure of speech,” —although Spock is aware of the phrase and is sure he hadn’t reacted to it visibly— “But it won’t stop. I’m getting stronger. I think, if I went berserk again now the way I did that night, I’d be able to break the restraints. And that scares the shit out of me, Spock.” The confession is over. He looks up again, meets Spock’s eyes steadily. His hands are shaking.

“You have been distracting yourself,” Spock says, concealing his own emotional compromise for his captain’s sake; later, he will meditate for hours on this and only this. “And I remind you.”

“I thought you would,” Jim says. “Mostly, it was just that every time I thought of comming you, I thought, ‘He’ll know.’”

 _Of course I would know,_ Spock does not say. Instead he says, “And yet, now that we have resumed communicating, it seems that you wish for me to know.”

“Well, if I tell you, I can’t be scared of you knowing anymore,” Jim says. “And I don’t want to be. I’ve missed you.” He flushes now, and Spock experiences a sensation he has rarely encountered: the world seems to slow down.

Suddenly he is overwhelmed: in an instant, this conversation has become important to his own understanding of his emotional self. He will, he knows, replay these few moments over and over for several nights to come, deconstruct this moment to understand what has happened, and why. As soon as the frustration comes, time seems to return to the speed at which he normally perceives it.

The entrees arrive. Jim has barely begun his appetizer, but he pushes it aside and focuses his attention temporarily on his meal. Spock follows suit: the beets are flavorful, the pears juicy, and the goat cheese and buttery crust provide a pleasant contrast of saltiness. It was an excellent choice, and he makes certain that Jim sees him nod in appreciation.

Despite the size of his meal, Jim finishes in the time it has taken for Spock to eat one-half of his flatbread. Unperturbed, he begins to speak again, his voice lifted now that the time for confession has passed. “I’ve been reading a lot,” he says, “and I picked up some old books about San Francisco’s history. I thought there might be some architectural information, something I could tie into this project of mine. But there wasn’t much I could use. It’s mostly about Starfleet; there’s very little from before then.” He twists his lip and crunches on his remaining edamame for a moment. The server comes to clear Jim’s plates away, and Jim asks for a pot of hot water, then continues.

“The ‘Fleet won’t give me anything to do, as I’m sure you know—if you have a chance, you could tell someone that’s bullshit, by the way, I feel like it might mean more coming from you than from me. And I’m not running, and I’m not drinking alcohol or caffeine, and Bones is too busy for me to bother him, and I really didn’t want to help out in Engineering because I know it would distract everyone to have me down there, so I’ve been chomping at the bit. Archer keeps suggesting I take some leave, but when I tried telling him I was going to Riverside he refused to approve it as leave. I guess he knew I wasn’t going to be hanging out at the old farmhouse, with my ship in the yard.”

“The Admiral is an intelligent man,” Spock observes as drily as he can.

“Anyway, I thought I could hole up on the ship and keep myself occupied, but I have to leave when the repair crews go for the night and there’s only so long I can go with my nose in a book before I have to get out into the town.” He snorts.

“Do you have social contacts in the area?” Spock asks.

“I could go to the farmhouse, but it’s empty right now. Mom’s on tactical for DS1, did I ever tell you that?” He hadn’t, but Spock had known. Commander Kirk had sent messages to Doctor McCoy when Jim had been in the hospital. “And Sam’s on Deneva, probably forever. Besides that… I know people, but they’re not…” He grimaces.

“The local populace does not seem particularly worldly,” Spock says, hoping that Jim will not take offense at the observation.

“Is this your first time in Riverside? Probably not, huh,” Jim says, and it does not seem that there will be a more opportune time for them to speak of Admiral Pike, so Spock shakes his head.

“I came shortly after I had been named First Officer,” he says. “I was accompanied by Captain Pike. He was a most satisfactory guide, although I’m certain your familiarity with the region’s points of interest surpasses his.”

“Well, there aren’t many points of interest,” Jim says, and then goes quiet. “He’d been before the Enterprise, before the shipyard even. He came by when I was a kid, when he was working on his thesis. I met him briefly. I’m not sure if he knew that I remembered that. We never talked about it.” A muscle jumps in his jaw, and with his gaze unfocused, he looks away from Spock toward an empty corner of the restaurant. “I always thought I’d have the chance, eventually.”

“That is a sentiment I share,” Spock answers, matching his captain’s soft tone.

“You were close,” Jim says, still not looking up, trailing his fingers along the edge of the table. “I mean, you were his second-in-command. In a lot of ways, I barely knew him.”

“And yet you shared an emotional bond that was recognized widely,” Spock says. “I know that those responsible for his memorial service deeply regretted that they were not able to delay it to accommodate your attendance. They admitted that to me freely, and explicitly.”

“How was it?” Jim asks, meeting his eyes. “The memorial.” The words are quick, as if he is speaking them before he can think better of it. Somewhere deep, beyond the realm of his emotional controls, Spock feels a twinge of pain.

“I did not attend,” he says. “It was… a point of contention, between Nyota and myself, in the time that followed.”

He dreads what his captain is about to ask—dreads the same hurt, perhaps even tearful question that Nyota had posed to him, _why?_ , and dreads the guilt that Jim might feel when he explains. But there is no question. Jim sits back in his seat and says quietly, “You stayed with me, didn’t you?”

“I thought it a fitting tribute, considering your closeness with the admiral.”

“Spock, that’s…” His fingers fly in flustered gesturing, articulating something his words can’t. “I don’t know what to say. To thank you, or to apologize, or to say you shouldn’t have, but… I know you well enough to know that’s not the sort of decision you’d make lightly.” His jaw clenches again; he looks away again; his face twitches into an expression of frustrated concentration. Spock does not interrupt. “I don’t know if you’re right about a fitting tribute. I don’t know… not even that day, not even when he named me his first after that shitshow, I didn’t know what to say, how to tell him about…”

“What he meant to you,” Spock supplies, and Jim scrubs a hand through his hair and looks at the ceiling as if blinking away tears, although Spock does not see any telltale shimmer in his eyes.

“I don’t know how it was so damn clear to everybody else when I couldn’t even say it out loud. Can’t now, even.” He lets out a choked laugh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Their server arrives with a ceramic teapot on a small platter and two old-fashioned cups with saucers, and Jim gladly accepts the distraction. He ruffles abruptly through his small bag.

“I don’t have your blend finished yet, but you’re welcome to some of my signature stuff,” Jim says, pulling out a long, rolled-up pouch of herbs. “It’s a spiced oolong blend. I was missing flavor. Added pink pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and then a touch of rose to give it a nice…” His breath shudders. “Some nice mellowing for balance, and I…” He fumbles with the lid of the teapot, his hands shaking, drapes the handmade teabags inside to brew, and replaces the lid so it traps the pouches in place. His hands retreat, fold under the table. His gaze unfocuses again, face turned toward the empty corner, and takes a series of measured breaths.

“Sorry,” he whispers again after a minute.

“Apologies are unnecessary,” Spock says. “Jim. You are upset. Allow me to assist you.”

“I don’t know what the hell is happening to me,” Jim says, lifting his trembling hands atop the table and lowering his forehead against them. His voice is only slightly muffled as he continues: “I’m a Starfleet captain. This can’t be this way forever. As much as I want to be with you on _kaiidth_ , I can’t just accept this. It’s gotta stop, I can’t keep…”

“Jim, please.”

Jim lifts his head to look up and meets Spock’s eyes. He seems startled, and after a moment, he nods. Spock reaches out easily, as if he has done this a thousand times, and presses his hand to Jim’s wrist. He feels the pulse there, quick but steady. He feels, too, a wave of anger and wordless frustration, such different chaos from the last time his fingers touched Jim’s skin. Without initiating any deeper connection, he tries to do as he had done in their meld in the hospital weeks before: he creates a mirror for Jim’s emotional state inside himself, hoping that then when he changes his own state, Jim’s will follow his lead. He must embrace his human half to do this: the anger is easy to access, as it has been, the frustration and empathetic fear, the fierceness and affection. He allows himself to feel, then melts it as best he can into calmness, serenity, relaxation. Although he meets some success, his controls have slipped farther than he’d realized. He withdraws dissatisfied.

He hadn’t been aware of closing his eyes, but his focus had been so complete he had not noticed his own plate taken away. His water glass has been refilled, so full of ice it will be unbearably cold. The tea is likely oversteeped. None of this matters, or at least, none of it should.

Jim’s eyes are strange. They don’t look away, but there is something inside of them, a darkness or a knowing or uneasiness. Now that they are separate, Spock cannot say.

 _It would be easier if you could bear to see him in pain,_ the Vulcan part of him says, and he is aware that it is true. This compassion, this shared hurt, is causing more confusion than resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!
> 
> Thank you so, so, so much for waiting so long for this update, and for reading in the first place. I'm switching back and forth between two fandoms right now, and I finally finished the segment I needed to for the other, so you will have my full attention for the next month at least. Part Three, "that which we are, we are", is coming up next, covering the following ten months until the ship launches. There will be a lot of resolution in that segment. (The "special" resolution you're waiting for doesn't come until Part Four, but I promise to keep the slow build and make the payoff worth it ;) )
> 
> Concrit is welcomed!


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